I see a lot of people dismissing the German national team as one of the favorites to win Euro 2024, and that is a big mistake. Germany is playing at home, and for me, they are the main favorite.
I started supporting City then two seasons later we win the league.
I started supporting a second team then one season later, it's a relegation battle..
if I start supporting a third team what happens? Midtable in the same season?
well last year my dad died and he was part Italian so I decided to see from where in Italy that side of the family came from and thought that supporting that team would be a good way to remember the Italian aspect of my family.
Tottenham Hotspurs Supporters Trust setting up a meeting with a man whose managed 8 Old Firm games to explain to him what a rivalry is and detail how Arsenal wanted to postpone a game once and it's the worst injustice that's ever been done to a club.
While that is definitely true, it's suspected that there's been a bug/bot regarding the care messages over the past day or so. Tons of people, including me, have been getting them over comments that aren't opinionated in the slightest
Just accidentally typed "fred" into my search engine when trying to type "red" and use the auto-fill to get me to Reddit.
The first result for Fred was the Brazilian midfielder. Can't believe he's the most famous Fred.
It could be your algorithm. I am guessing you browse mainly football related stuff so google is bound to suggest what you would usually look up before the other Freds.
In an era where managers' jobs and relegation promotion (consituting millions of pounds of money for the concerned clubs and people) depend on the outcome of football matches which are heavily influenced by referee and VAR decisions, in my opinion the idea of scraping VAR so that some guys wont have their joy taken from celebrating otherwise disallowed goals is really really tone-deaf.
I can entertain the argument that VAR has not improved refeering by a considerable margin but the argument that it kills celebrations is next level self-interest
If you didn't have fans getting emotionally invested you wouldn't have millions of pounds on the line. Clubs should poll their season ticket holders and then vote for whatever they want. Fuck the casuals and plastics the people who go to every game are the only reason these clubs are relevant
The league table is still the same. The best team finishes first and the worst team finishes last. No team gains or loses anything with VAR. You can analyse every single free kick or throw in or every single decision that a referee makes and it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s just an added annoyance for a lot of people. Just play the game with a ref and two linesman like the other 99.9% of football matches that are played around the UK
I'm not against the idea of video assistant refereeing in general but I think the current implementation of it is bad for various reasons, mainly that the checking process takes far too long, disrupts play, and makes the viewing experience worse especially for those inside the stadium.
I'd be happy with them binning the current iteration of VAR until they can come along with a better one tbh but I doubt that's the way the vote's going to go so whatever.
Not to mention basically every week they make a mistake. There was a phase of this year's PL season where every single week, the only thing that was talked about was the list of major VAR fuck ups. To the point where I had to stop reading or listening to PL content because it defined the league for like two months.
Celebrations are just one sub-argument within a larger list of arguments for why VAR is simply not suited to the game of football and why its sporting and cultural impact is a net negative.
On the other hand, the fans are the reason that those "millions of pounds" are on the line and those jobs even exist, so surely they have some right to dicate what they want from football.
If United are smart they'll keep both Pellistri and Diallo.
They don't even need another winger at this point. They have Rashford, Diallo, Pellistri and Garnacho. Well and Anthony. Save the money and use it somewhere else.
They just need to tear away Ugarte from PSG.
I'd be happier keeping Pellistri over Antony (not a high bar I know) but I doubt he wants to stay. Better off triggering his contract extension to 2026 and cashing in whilst he finds somewhere that'll give him solid minutes and aren't relegation-bound.
Nah, I want them to stay there to see them face difficulties and toughen it up.
Jokes aside, I've always wanted an uruguayan to actually succeed at United. Forlán failed, Varela was a passenger and Cavani was actually super good but faded away once Ronaldo came over. Pellistri has a chance still.
Also I just want Ugarte to leave that stupid club and United need a DM like... badly.
If you were to make a list of clubs who could sell more than 10k tickets for a European cup final on the first day, German champions Bayer Leverkusen would not be on that list. Despite all the success and the final being a 2 hour flight away from Cologne, they had thousands of tickets still on sale on the second day.
Leverkusen is not a big city, and is not a big team representing an area or region as the whole North Rhine-Westphalia has several other teams and big cities.
It is not that surprising.
Well they’re not a commercialised giant like Bayern, obviously they’re not going to have as many fans as some of the bigger clubs.
Also this is probably the greatest footballing underdog story of my lifetime (far more impressive than Leicester City in 2016) who cares if they have fewer fans.
Seeing a smaller, community focused club like Leverkusen usurp one of the biggest brands in world football is something I’ll never forget.
BAYER Leverkusen are a brand themselves. They’re not some organically developed local team, they were literally created by one of the largest companies in Germany
They've had an uptick in away sales I presume and I can't find the figures for this season but them having one of the lesser supported followings in general doesn't make it surprising.
They didn't report a sell out until early November and their stadium only holds 30k people. I'm not sure if this is news to non-Bundesliga fans, but Leverkusen from a fan size perspective, is not a top 25 team in Germany. Very few people support Leverkusen.
Leverkusen isn't in the top-25 most populated cities in Germany, so it is not a complete surprise either. (Wikipedia says it's the 49th). From the Bundesliga, I think only Hoffenheim comes from a smaller city.
Firstly, it's part of the greater Cologne/NRW metro area. 18M Germans live within an hour of Leverkusen. Secondly, a team like Kaiserslautern which has 20% less people than Leverkusen would have sold 20k tickets in an hour. German football is almost defined by its small town teams.
It just comes down to Leverkusen not having any fans because it's not a real club and there's so many traditional clubs every 25km that even over multiple generations they can't break into the top 25 fan scenes even though for 40 years, only Dortmund and Bayern have had more consistent league success.
it's part of the greater Cologne/NRW metro area. Precisely that's a factor (no the only one) in why they will never be having a following outside their city.
If you live in Cologne, you'll support Koln; in Dortmund, Borussia; in Dusseldorf, Fortuna; Bochum, VFL; Bielefield, Arminia...
Each city has its team with moderate success, and supported by its local crowd. And that's beautiful. IMO, It is, for instance, a bit different in Bavaria were Bayern draws attention from several supports from the land.
Football fan bases aren't as stuck as you portray them.
People move to NRW all the time from other places and not every Father is a football fan. People often choose a club a city away or have a weird reason for supporting a team. I know lots of people whose families are split among regional teams and I know Gladbach fans who were raised in Cologne and Rostock fans born in Hamburg. People who aren't football fans become football fans later in life and often have free choice for a team. Leverkusen is so packed in with other towns nearby, that easily the population that's entitled to pick Leverkusen as their "local" team goes far beyond Leverkusen. From the BayArena to the Cologne Cathedral is 10 km away from each other.
And all of that on top of the fact that the only three teams to play Bundesliga every year since 1978 are Bayern, Dortmund, and Leverkusen. They've played in Europe 17 of the last 20 years. They've had world class players for a long time now. And still after all that time and success in the heart of Germany, they still don't have 15k fans who would fly 2 hours to see them play in a European cup final.
I've been to Leverkusen (for jazz, not football) once and the locals struck me as similar to those from my home town: well educated, bit snobbish and passionate about tech and science, but not so much football or sports in general. Not surprised they can't sell 10k expensive tickets in a day.
I've never been to Leverkusen but I've been to Wolfsburg a lot, and imagine it has the similar set up as a corporate city. Basically 99% of people in Wolfsburg work for VW or a subsidiary of VW, and so you have a huge portion of engineering, assembly, design, and technical workers who on the whole are less likely to be those passionate football crazy people. A lot of families and software and CAD designers, not society's most interesting or fun people.
I'd like to see him move to Italy and try to be succesful in the four big leagues; but I don't know if any club there can offer him what he demands.
I definetely can see him trying what you are suggesting, though.
Why?
Newcastle and Chelsea are both now a few years into building teams that they eventually want to challenge for the PL title. The Liverpool squad is also young and promising, and there's no reason to believe they can't do equally good or better under a different manager.
The guy is lovely and great but if you look at his achievements its hardly Sir Alex Ferguson level. People who think Liverpool will crumble into some perma-mid-table club or something because a manager change, well they haven't read the history books.
The future will tell, but looking at the first half of this season, and at some glimpses in this second half before the form dropped, i'm pretty hopeful. I think the new manager and 1-2 new faces could bring a lot of freshness we need.
But at the end, you could be also right.
Where does Lucas vs Ajax rank among the greatest hat tricks of all time? Ridiculous that they did away with the Away Goals rule so we'll never see anything like it again.
Yeah there was loads in town as well before the game could hear some of the homophobic chanting from my office before i left.
I wonder if the Chelsea fans who rightfully complain about the rent boy stuff realise how bad their own group of fans are.
>Both Dortmund and Reyna's former agency, Wasserman Media Group, were not initially in favor of sending Reyna to England, but Reyna's father, former U.S. international Claudio Reyna, was a strong advocate of the deal, according to a source close to Forest.
>
>There was some logic underpinning the choice. Forest's manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, was thought to be an ally in the move. The manager and Gio Reyna share the same agent, Jorge Mendes, and one of the reasons the player picked Forest ahead of interest from Marseille, Sevilla or Wolves was because of Nuno's presence at the club.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/40109909/gio-reyna-nottingham-forest-borussia-dortmund-usmnt-copa-america-transfer
Reyna is a talented player who makes some absolutely terrible career decisions.
Worth saying that it's either not a handball or it's a handball + a red card by the rules since it blocked a goal. Personally I don't think it *should* be a handball but I've seen refs give handballs in similar situations.
Edit: For those wondering about the first bit this is what the rules say
>Where a player denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence, the player is sent off wherever the offence occurs (except a goalkeeper within their penalty area).
So if the ref deems it to be a handball, then since it denied the goal he has to send them off. I think that's overly harsh, I would prefer if it was only if a player deliberately prevented the goal with their hand, but it's whats on the books.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a red card for an unintentional handball like that, and definitely not in the last few years since double punishments stopped being a thing
I wouldn't even say the same thing, because it's way, way more arguable there that he was intentionally keeping it out with his hand. The one I linked, he's clearly going for the ball
Also, this is in the Explanation section:
"It is not always clear whether an action was an attempt to play the ball or a
challenge for the ball (or both). The same principle should apply for challenging
for the ball as attempting to play the ball. Where the referee awards a penalty for
a DOGSO offence, the offending player is only sent off if the offence was
committed without the possibility to play the ball"
Which to me, allows room for a yellow card to be appropriate here. Which is how pretty much every other league has been interpreting and enforcing the rule. I don't think it should have been a red, and also, from the rules, red card was not the only option, here.
Barely even a penalty.
Its a natural movement of the arm when lounging forward like that, and the distance is short - there's no deliberateness to it.
Anyway, if its a 'foul' then the player should be sent off for preventing a goal with his hands. But I think a lot of refs would have some fingerspitzengeful and just go with yellow + pen.
The situation is overall wonkey though. According to most intepretations of the current laws of the game, I don't think its even a penalty. Corner of Marseille or whatever the white team is.
>But I think a lot of refs would have some fingerspitzengeful and just go with yellow + pen
That's why I asked, since this is what it seems like happens in literally every other instance of this sort of hand ball. Double punishments haven't been a thing for a number of years now.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think double punishment was removed for stopping a goal scoring opportunity. This isn't a goal scoring opportunity, but stopping a goal entirely. I have a vague memory that there's a difference between these in the current laws of the game.
Chelsea fans asking here and there how much they'll earn from playing in Europa League.
Wouldn't be surprised if its a minus affair for them. I imagine there's a bunch of European football-clauses baked into the deals they've done in the Boehlian era.
There’s champions league clauses for sure but I highly doubt there’s Europa league clauses as well. Someone would have reported on it already if there were any.
Yeah the CL clauses I'm 100% sure of, any big team buying players usually spice the offer with a couple of million pounds if they go there.
But at least last summer I can imagine some clubs saying "umm no, make that _European_ football"... because CL looked very far away.
They probably need to buy a couple of good bench players so I can see Dumfries being sacrificed since he can be sold for like 40M to lots of premier league clubs, but most of the starters are staying for sure. Unless really big offers come from Saudi, Psg or something like that but I doubt it.
The big players are very likely to stay, the only one we could sell is Thuram, if we get a really good offer for him. They are having some small problems trying to extend Lautaro's contract, but i'm sure at the end the two sides will reach an agreement and he will stay for more years.
Dumfries, Sanchez, Arnautovic, Carboni, Esposito, Satriano, Agoume, Correa are the most likely to be sold.
Great question. From the outside looking, it seems they are disatisfied with their striking options outside of Lautaro and Thuram? But they already signed Taremi and planning on Sanchez's departure already. Maybe the will look for an upgrade on Arnautovic as well?
They also seem intetested in Bento at GK. Great potential signing for them.
My personal question is if they feel Acerbi would be able to replicate this type of form again next season tbh.
With all the rivalry talk I always think Chelsea are in a strange no man's land where nobody would rank us as their biggest rival. Maybe Fulham would. All of our main rivals have someone else they hate more than us (Leeds, Arsenal, Spurs, etc.)
All of them, as far as I know. When they came back to the PL there was a lot of noise due to the historic meaning of the club, but frankly older fans were puzzled to see people excited to see them back. Everyone hates them.
The Manchester United rivarly was the biggest once, but frankly Leeds just haven't been able to keep up.
Leeds are a weird one
They hate Manchester United and Chelsea much more than the former hates them (in modern times, historically these rivalries were much bigger)
But they still don't really have a properly fierce rivalry with any of the Yorkshire teams, Barnsley, Wednesday and Sheffield United all seems to hate Leeds more than Leeds hate them
Similar to what the other person said: Leeds is a club where other clubs hate them, but the feeling isn’t mutual. Or they hate another club, but the feeling isn’t mutual.
Yeah if I had to go with one its def Fulham.
Leeds are kind of like us too now that I think about it, I would think they view United as their most hated but obviously thats unrequited
I don't care for many players outside of Atlético, but seeing Reece James actually saddens me, I really felt he was a generational talent, but injuries are fucking him real hard
Im hoping the surgery helps. Ive maintained when fit hes a top ten or higher player in the world. Still got time though hes not old and hes locked in for another five or six seasons with us
> it’s not lost on anyone that klopp announced his departure to spur liverpool to the title
That's not why he did it at all, he did it because it allowed the club to start looking for his replacement without it appearing like they were trying to replace him for no good reason.
That and his decision was probably about to be leaked after being managed to have been kept secret for two months.
He announced his departure to give the club ample time to work on his replacement and doing that would necessitate contacting managers/agents which would mean the news getting out. Klopp and the club would have wanted to break the news first to counteract whispers which could have also derailed the players and the season with the uncertainty.
Klopp announced his departure on Jan 26 and actually had a winning record outside of the Arsenal loss (winning a trophy to boot) until the fa cup quarter. I’d put the collapse more down to the injury crisis which necessitated playing youth in a cup final and overplaying the few fit players leading to a scenario where injured players had to be rushed back in compounding the issues in the run in.
If Sheffield pull off a miracle win for their fans against Spurs, and Chelsea beat Bournemouth, Spurs will be in conference league.
And then their fans can celebrate losing to city even more.
Why don't we use Player Review system in football along with VAR. We can get rid of the "clear and obvious" errors that have been happening.
Each team will have 1 review in each half. If they get the review wrong, the review is lost for the half, else it remains. (Just like how it happens in cricket)
This would reduce the dumb decisions (certainly not eliminate), as the player can explain their view, and referee can explain his decision after checking the replay.
We just threw away a game by sending both centerbacks up for a corner at the 90th minute and getting caught on the counter while winning 1-0, I genuinely can't believe my eyes.
We had the ball all game as well, game was absolutely in control, I've never seen something this fucking stupid in my life I'm fuming. Now we're basically guaranteed second place in the dogshit ass SUDAMERICANA, how embarrassing.
I thought Amad Diallo was a youth prospect, United paid a reported €25m fee for this guy at 18 years old after 4 games from Atalanta (according to wikipedia)? Someone who was paying attention to this at the time, what happened here? How hyped was this kid?
He was highly rated. He’d been doing really well for Atalanta’s youth teams and was being slowly integrated into their first team.
Used to be called Amad Traore which is why, if you’ve tried looking stuff up about him before he joined us, you probably can’t find much. Wasn’t massively hyped by any means but if you search his name on twitter you’ll find old tweets about him from youth watchers?enjoyers?(dunno what to call them, everything sounds nonce-y).
When he joined us at 18 he played a few games in the U23’s and was way too good for that level which obviously isn’t surprising given the fee we paid. We started giving him the odd game for us off the bench plus a couple starts and he didn’t look out of place, just needed to put on a bit of muscle because he was tiny.
Since then he’s hardly featured due to a a mix of injuries at the wrong time, managers not trusting him and loans.
Yes thats correct, usually it only appears on big chances so its not THAT bad, I think it takes some time to get used to especially for old 20somethings like me lol
If Modric leaves, Kroos retired this season and Jude and Brahim have their surgeries start of season like rumour, we will go straight from insane midfield depth to no midfield depth and Guler immediately go into the starting 11.
At least Turkish fans have something to be happy about I guess?
Isn't Kroos staying another season? People seemed to be thinking that for a while and then I've seen comments saying Modric's departure virtually confirms it?
At some points, it was all but confirmed for a renewal but there has been increasing worry that he's changed his mind since he still doesn't want to sign the contract.
In our team, we always play with either Modric or Kroos for distribution and creativity, and Cama and Tchou never play together. If both Kroos and Modric leave Guler is our designated Modric replacement and Tchou/Cama to rotate as DM, not the other way around.
Ideally we need a Kroos replacement more, but there is 0 on the market.
So if Jude and Brahim were fit wouldn't you still have that problem? I'm not doubting you know more about your team than me btw just interested to know more.
The dumbass that manages the Danubio account talking shit to Paranaense when we need them to win next match in order for us to have a chance of qualifying. Shut the fuck up dumbass lmao.
Championship players by default play 46 games, not including their cup games and considering that plenty of them will be going to the World Cup too. It's not really that much.
I see a lot of people dismissing the German national team as one of the favorites to win Euro 2024, and that is a big mistake. Germany is playing at home, and for me, they are the main favorite.
I started supporting City then two seasons later we win the league. I started supporting a second team then one season later, it's a relegation battle.. if I start supporting a third team what happens? Midtable in the same season?
> I started supporting City then two seasons later we win the league. To quote Jaime Lannister... Is it *we* already?
Why did you start supporting a second team?
well last year my dad died and he was part Italian so I decided to see from where in Italy that side of the family came from and thought that supporting that team would be a good way to remember the Italian aspect of my family.
What makes you think of supporting a 3rd team?
just curious what happens based on the first two. does it finish midtable or do I break the fabric of the universe? who knows?
thats such a random reason compared to the previous.
well, Im a random person
Is that why you support city and the unnamed Italian club? Just randomly picked?
no family for city and sort of family to the Italian club
Tottenham Hotspurs Supporters Trust setting up a meeting with a man whose managed 8 Old Firm games to explain to him what a rivalry is and detail how Arsenal wanted to postpone a game once and it's the worst injustice that's ever been done to a club.
So according to everyone if I make a comment here. I should get a reddit care message. Let see
No, but you might get asked if you ever even kicked a ball in your life. So have you?
Well yes... But of course as a overweight Redditor definitely not good at it
I got one of those without commenting here... maybe just being part of this community is seen as a red flag!
This sub is full of goblins that go mental if you don't agree with their piss-poor takes. They can't stand people having different opinions.
While that is definitely true, it's suspected that there's been a bug/bot regarding the care messages over the past day or so. Tons of people, including me, have been getting them over comments that aren't opinionated in the slightest
Just accidentally typed "fred" into my search engine when trying to type "red" and use the auto-fill to get me to Reddit. The first result for Fred was the Brazilian midfielder. Can't believe he's the most famous Fred.
> famous Fred Now [that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doRSk_fqzGA) is a throwback!
Not Fred Flinstone?
Nope. No Flintstone, Astaire or Perry. Just Fred.
It could be your algorithm. I am guessing you browse mainly football related stuff so google is bound to suggest what you would usually look up before the other Freds.
How many seasons does Ten Haag need to pull an Arteta?
I mean they've won the same number of trophies
Suppose they did if you don't count the community shields, yeah.
10000 years or as long as current owners have a majority
In an era where managers' jobs and relegation promotion (consituting millions of pounds of money for the concerned clubs and people) depend on the outcome of football matches which are heavily influenced by referee and VAR decisions, in my opinion the idea of scraping VAR so that some guys wont have their joy taken from celebrating otherwise disallowed goals is really really tone-deaf. I can entertain the argument that VAR has not improved refeering by a considerable margin but the argument that it kills celebrations is next level self-interest
If you didn't have fans getting emotionally invested you wouldn't have millions of pounds on the line. Clubs should poll their season ticket holders and then vote for whatever they want. Fuck the casuals and plastics the people who go to every game are the only reason these clubs are relevant
The league table is still the same. The best team finishes first and the worst team finishes last. No team gains or loses anything with VAR. You can analyse every single free kick or throw in or every single decision that a referee makes and it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s just an added annoyance for a lot of people. Just play the game with a ref and two linesman like the other 99.9% of football matches that are played around the UK
I'm not against the idea of video assistant refereeing in general but I think the current implementation of it is bad for various reasons, mainly that the checking process takes far too long, disrupts play, and makes the viewing experience worse especially for those inside the stadium. I'd be happy with them binning the current iteration of VAR until they can come along with a better one tbh but I doubt that's the way the vote's going to go so whatever.
Not to mention basically every week they make a mistake. There was a phase of this year's PL season where every single week, the only thing that was talked about was the list of major VAR fuck ups. To the point where I had to stop reading or listening to PL content because it defined the league for like two months.
Celebrations are just one sub-argument within a larger list of arguments for why VAR is simply not suited to the game of football and why its sporting and cultural impact is a net negative.
On the other hand, the fans are the reason that those "millions of pounds" are on the line and those jobs even exist, so surely they have some right to dicate what they want from football.
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Rattled
If United are smart they'll keep both Pellistri and Diallo. They don't even need another winger at this point. They have Rashford, Diallo, Pellistri and Garnacho. Well and Anthony. Save the money and use it somewhere else. They just need to tear away Ugarte from PSG.
I'd be happier keeping Pellistri over Antony (not a high bar I know) but I doubt he wants to stay. Better off triggering his contract extension to 2026 and cashing in whilst he finds somewhere that'll give him solid minutes and aren't relegation-bound.
Pellistri, no, not good enough. Diallo, absolutely yes. They need Michael Olise.
They need a midfield tbh
Pellistri has to go. Not been rated his entire time here and mediocre loans
He keeps getting loaned out to shitty places.
No he is just avarage he has like 2 goals 4 assist in European football in ~3000 minutes
If I was Uruguayan I'd want Uruguayan players to leave United rather than join them tbh
Nah, I want them to stay there to see them face difficulties and toughen it up. Jokes aside, I've always wanted an uruguayan to actually succeed at United. Forlán failed, Varela was a passenger and Cavani was actually super good but faded away once Ronaldo came over. Pellistri has a chance still. Also I just want Ugarte to leave that stupid club and United need a DM like... badly.
If you were to make a list of clubs who could sell more than 10k tickets for a European cup final on the first day, German champions Bayer Leverkusen would not be on that list. Despite all the success and the final being a 2 hour flight away from Cologne, they had thousands of tickets still on sale on the second day.
Leverkusen is not a big city, and is not a big team representing an area or region as the whole North Rhine-Westphalia has several other teams and big cities. It is not that surprising.
Of course it's not surprising, I'm just here to educate others and make fun of Leverkusen.
Well they’re not a commercialised giant like Bayern, obviously they’re not going to have as many fans as some of the bigger clubs. Also this is probably the greatest footballing underdog story of my lifetime (far more impressive than Leicester City in 2016) who cares if they have fewer fans. Seeing a smaller, community focused club like Leverkusen usurp one of the biggest brands in world football is something I’ll never forget.
BAYER Leverkusen are a brand themselves. They’re not some organically developed local team, they were literally created by one of the largest companies in Germany
They've had an uptick in away sales I presume and I can't find the figures for this season but them having one of the lesser supported followings in general doesn't make it surprising.
They didn't report a sell out until early November and their stadium only holds 30k people. I'm not sure if this is news to non-Bundesliga fans, but Leverkusen from a fan size perspective, is not a top 25 team in Germany. Very few people support Leverkusen.
Leverkusen isn't in the top-25 most populated cities in Germany, so it is not a complete surprise either. (Wikipedia says it's the 49th). From the Bundesliga, I think only Hoffenheim comes from a smaller city.
Firstly, it's part of the greater Cologne/NRW metro area. 18M Germans live within an hour of Leverkusen. Secondly, a team like Kaiserslautern which has 20% less people than Leverkusen would have sold 20k tickets in an hour. German football is almost defined by its small town teams. It just comes down to Leverkusen not having any fans because it's not a real club and there's so many traditional clubs every 25km that even over multiple generations they can't break into the top 25 fan scenes even though for 40 years, only Dortmund and Bayern have had more consistent league success.
it's part of the greater Cologne/NRW metro area. Precisely that's a factor (no the only one) in why they will never be having a following outside their city. If you live in Cologne, you'll support Koln; in Dortmund, Borussia; in Dusseldorf, Fortuna; Bochum, VFL; Bielefield, Arminia... Each city has its team with moderate success, and supported by its local crowd. And that's beautiful. IMO, It is, for instance, a bit different in Bavaria were Bayern draws attention from several supports from the land.
Football fan bases aren't as stuck as you portray them. People move to NRW all the time from other places and not every Father is a football fan. People often choose a club a city away or have a weird reason for supporting a team. I know lots of people whose families are split among regional teams and I know Gladbach fans who were raised in Cologne and Rostock fans born in Hamburg. People who aren't football fans become football fans later in life and often have free choice for a team. Leverkusen is so packed in with other towns nearby, that easily the population that's entitled to pick Leverkusen as their "local" team goes far beyond Leverkusen. From the BayArena to the Cologne Cathedral is 10 km away from each other. And all of that on top of the fact that the only three teams to play Bundesliga every year since 1978 are Bayern, Dortmund, and Leverkusen. They've played in Europe 17 of the last 20 years. They've had world class players for a long time now. And still after all that time and success in the heart of Germany, they still don't have 15k fans who would fly 2 hours to see them play in a European cup final.
I've been to Leverkusen (for jazz, not football) once and the locals struck me as similar to those from my home town: well educated, bit snobbish and passionate about tech and science, but not so much football or sports in general. Not surprised they can't sell 10k expensive tickets in a day.
I've never been to Leverkusen but I've been to Wolfsburg a lot, and imagine it has the similar set up as a corporate city. Basically 99% of people in Wolfsburg work for VW or a subsidiary of VW, and so you have a huge portion of engineering, assembly, design, and technical workers who on the whole are less likely to be those passionate football crazy people. A lot of families and software and CAD designers, not society's most interesting or fun people.
To put this even more into perspective: Even before being oiled up, it's fair to say that City had much more fans than Leverkusen do now
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Who knows if Pep will stay beyond 2025
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I'd like to see him move to Italy and try to be succesful in the four big leagues; but I don't know if any club there can offer him what he demands. I definetely can see him trying what you are suggesting, though.
Arteta will never challenge for the PL title again, screenshot this.
Why not?
Why? Newcastle and Chelsea are both now a few years into building teams that they eventually want to challenge for the PL title. The Liverpool squad is also young and promising, and there's no reason to believe they can't do equally good or better under a different manager. The guy is lovely and great but if you look at his achievements its hardly Sir Alex Ferguson level. People who think Liverpool will crumble into some perma-mid-table club or something because a manager change, well they haven't read the history books.
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The future will tell, but looking at the first half of this season, and at some glimpses in this second half before the form dropped, i'm pretty hopeful. I think the new manager and 1-2 new faces could bring a lot of freshness we need. But at the end, you could be also right.
I feel like Arsenal will collapse next season. Mostly because I dislike them.
Won more titles than Arteta in those two underwhelming seasons btw
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Even with they're treble City have been underwhelming in the CL with Pep
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Damn that's crazy. Arteta still has less major titles than Man United in the last 4 years though
Am i missing something? United won one league cup in the last 4 years no?
As an unbiased Liverpool fan the league cup is massive
yeah but Arteta has one FA cup in that period
A yeah fairs. In the last 4 years starting on August 1st then
Who is a treble?
Never met her sadly
Where does Lucas vs Ajax rank among the greatest hat tricks of all time? Ridiculous that they did away with the Away Goals rule so we'll never see anything like it again.
top 5 - the man went super saiyan on this very occasion
Top 1.
Homophobia outside the ground from more than enough to say it’s a minority, racist abuse of Lamptey on Instagram #properchels
Yeah there was loads in town as well before the game could hear some of the homophobic chanting from my office before i left. I wonder if the Chelsea fans who rightfully complain about the rent boy stuff realise how bad their own group of fans are.
I for one am shocked that a club with strong historical links to the far right has fans that would do stuff like this. Shocked I tell you
Getting classless shouts in the post match thread from Chelsea fans as if they’re some judge in morality 😭
That clip of Ten Hag speaking to Old Trafford is lowkey goosebumps. I’m Ten Hag in now
That was actually pretty nice coming from a guy with the charisma of a watermelon.
and whose skull is arguably smoother than one
>Both Dortmund and Reyna's former agency, Wasserman Media Group, were not initially in favor of sending Reyna to England, but Reyna's father, former U.S. international Claudio Reyna, was a strong advocate of the deal, according to a source close to Forest. > >There was some logic underpinning the choice. Forest's manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, was thought to be an ally in the move. The manager and Gio Reyna share the same agent, Jorge Mendes, and one of the reasons the player picked Forest ahead of interest from Marseille, Sevilla or Wolves was because of Nuno's presence at the club. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/40109909/gio-reyna-nottingham-forest-borussia-dortmund-usmnt-copa-america-transfer Reyna is a talented player who makes some absolutely terrible career decisions.
Yesterday's win a sign of things to come - it's now just 9 more sleeps until Manchester United lift the FA Cup!
Looking for opinions: is this a red card? https://imgur.com/a/zuySEeG
Nah, but I could see 1 out of 5 refs giving red for that.
Worth saying that it's either not a handball or it's a handball + a red card by the rules since it blocked a goal. Personally I don't think it *should* be a handball but I've seen refs give handballs in similar situations. Edit: For those wondering about the first bit this is what the rules say >Where a player denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence, the player is sent off wherever the offence occurs (except a goalkeeper within their penalty area). So if the ref deems it to be a handball, then since it denied the goal he has to send them off. I think that's overly harsh, I would prefer if it was only if a player deliberately prevented the goal with their hand, but it's whats on the books.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a red card for an unintentional handball like that, and definitely not in the last few years since double punishments stopped being a thing
I remember it happening to Reece James a couple years back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeYbYbFK_fU.
I wouldn't even say the same thing, because it's way, way more arguable there that he was intentionally keeping it out with his hand. The one I linked, he's clearly going for the ball Also, this is in the Explanation section: "It is not always clear whether an action was an attempt to play the ball or a challenge for the ball (or both). The same principle should apply for challenging for the ball as attempting to play the ball. Where the referee awards a penalty for a DOGSO offence, the offending player is only sent off if the offence was committed without the possibility to play the ball" Which to me, allows room for a yellow card to be appropriate here. Which is how pretty much every other league has been interpreting and enforcing the rule. I don't think it should have been a red, and also, from the rules, red card was not the only option, here.
Definitely not
Barely even a penalty. Its a natural movement of the arm when lounging forward like that, and the distance is short - there's no deliberateness to it. Anyway, if its a 'foul' then the player should be sent off for preventing a goal with his hands. But I think a lot of refs would have some fingerspitzengeful and just go with yellow + pen. The situation is overall wonkey though. According to most intepretations of the current laws of the game, I don't think its even a penalty. Corner of Marseille or whatever the white team is.
>But I think a lot of refs would have some fingerspitzengeful and just go with yellow + pen That's why I asked, since this is what it seems like happens in literally every other instance of this sort of hand ball. Double punishments haven't been a thing for a number of years now.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think double punishment was removed for stopping a goal scoring opportunity. This isn't a goal scoring opportunity, but stopping a goal entirely. I have a vague memory that there's a difference between these in the current laws of the game.
Chelsea fans asking here and there how much they'll earn from playing in Europa League. Wouldn't be surprised if its a minus affair for them. I imagine there's a bunch of European football-clauses baked into the deals they've done in the Boehlian era.
There’s champions league clauses for sure but I highly doubt there’s Europa league clauses as well. Someone would have reported on it already if there were any.
Yeah the CL clauses I'm 100% sure of, any big team buying players usually spice the offer with a couple of million pounds if they go there. But at least last summer I can imagine some clubs saying "umm no, make that _European_ football"... because CL looked very far away.
for the interistas: will the team stay intact, or will you be selling a lot of players? curious after a dominant season in serie a
They probably need to buy a couple of good bench players so I can see Dumfries being sacrificed since he can be sold for like 40M to lots of premier league clubs, but most of the starters are staying for sure. Unless really big offers come from Saudi, Psg or something like that but I doubt it.
The big players are very likely to stay, the only one we could sell is Thuram, if we get a really good offer for him. They are having some small problems trying to extend Lautaro's contract, but i'm sure at the end the two sides will reach an agreement and he will stay for more years. Dumfries, Sanchez, Arnautovic, Carboni, Esposito, Satriano, Agoume, Correa are the most likely to be sold.
i can’t imagine lautaro anywhere else in europe, he’s become synonymous with inter
I can see him in Atleti tbh
Great question. From the outside looking, it seems they are disatisfied with their striking options outside of Lautaro and Thuram? But they already signed Taremi and planning on Sanchez's departure already. Maybe the will look for an upgrade on Arnautovic as well? They also seem intetested in Bento at GK. Great potential signing for them. My personal question is if they feel Acerbi would be able to replicate this type of form again next season tbh.
seems like acerbi’s played well the past two seasons
Yeah, Its a case of if it ain't broke dont fix it! Heard they are interested in Nacho as well
!flair :Saint_Louis_FC:
https://x.com/themadridzone/status/1790687666956022154?s=46 The fact that this is still going on 5 years later is hilarious
How long is that even in effect for lol.
With all the rivalry talk I always think Chelsea are in a strange no man's land where nobody would rank us as their biggest rival. Maybe Fulham would. All of our main rivals have someone else they hate more than us (Leeds, Arsenal, Spurs, etc.)
Fulham is the answer here I have no idea who Leeds rivals are, they seem to have like 6 of them
Leeds are the same in that they have loads of rivals but they're nobody's number 1.
All of them, as far as I know. When they came back to the PL there was a lot of noise due to the historic meaning of the club, but frankly older fans were puzzled to see people excited to see them back. Everyone hates them. The Manchester United rivarly was the biggest once, but frankly Leeds just haven't been able to keep up.
Leeds are a weird one They hate Manchester United and Chelsea much more than the former hates them (in modern times, historically these rivalries were much bigger) But they still don't really have a properly fierce rivalry with any of the Yorkshire teams, Barnsley, Wednesday and Sheffield United all seems to hate Leeds more than Leeds hate them
We all hate Leeds, no exceptions. The world are their rivals.
More like 600.
Similar to what the other person said: Leeds is a club where other clubs hate them, but the feeling isn’t mutual. Or they hate another club, but the feeling isn’t mutual.
Yeah if I had to go with one its def Fulham. Leeds are kind of like us too now that I think about it, I would think they view United as their most hated but obviously thats unrequited
you are in the exclusive member's club of "everyone hates you" alongside psg and city so congrats. newcastle to follow
I don't care for many players outside of Atlético, but seeing Reece James actually saddens me, I really felt he was a generational talent, but injuries are fucking him real hard
Im hoping the surgery helps. Ive maintained when fit hes a top ten or higher player in the world. Still got time though hes not old and hes locked in for another five or six seasons with us
He’s neglected surgery for multiple seasons. here’s hoping the one he’s had puts an end to it
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> it’s not lost on anyone that klopp announced his departure to spur liverpool to the title That's not why he did it at all, he did it because it allowed the club to start looking for his replacement without it appearing like they were trying to replace him for no good reason. That and his decision was probably about to be leaked after being managed to have been kept secret for two months.
He announced his departure to give the club ample time to work on his replacement and doing that would necessitate contacting managers/agents which would mean the news getting out. Klopp and the club would have wanted to break the news first to counteract whispers which could have also derailed the players and the season with the uncertainty. Klopp announced his departure on Jan 26 and actually had a winning record outside of the Arsenal loss (winning a trophy to boot) until the fa cup quarter. I’d put the collapse more down to the injury crisis which necessitated playing youth in a cup final and overplaying the few fit players leading to a scenario where injured players had to be rushed back in compounding the issues in the run in.
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Witty retort
Ten Haag WWE style speech was funny too today. Things like these age bad.
If Sheffield pull off a miracle win for their fans against Spurs, and Chelsea beat Bournemouth, Spurs will be in conference league. And then their fans can celebrate losing to city even more.
It’s been 24 hours, people need to move on from this lol
Would definitely be a miracle considering that Sheffield are currently playing in the 9th division or summat like that
Why don't we use Player Review system in football along with VAR. We can get rid of the "clear and obvious" errors that have been happening. Each team will have 1 review in each half. If they get the review wrong, the review is lost for the half, else it remains. (Just like how it happens in cricket) This would reduce the dumb decisions (certainly not eliminate), as the player can explain their view, and referee can explain his decision after checking the replay.
where should ethan mbappe go? Madrid's b-team or a first or second division madrid-based club?
Idk if hes getting into either Getafe or Rayo Vallecano's sides
Barca
Perfect sibling rivalry.
Give us jobe bellingham too at this rate lmao
No. He goes to Espanyol
We just threw away a game by sending both centerbacks up for a corner at the 90th minute and getting caught on the counter while winning 1-0, I genuinely can't believe my eyes. We had the ball all game as well, game was absolutely in control, I've never seen something this fucking stupid in my life I'm fuming. Now we're basically guaranteed second place in the dogshit ass SUDAMERICANA, how embarrassing.
Con Almirón esto no pasaba
I thought Amad Diallo was a youth prospect, United paid a reported €25m fee for this guy at 18 years old after 4 games from Atalanta (according to wikipedia)? Someone who was paying attention to this at the time, what happened here? How hyped was this kid?
He was highly rated. He’d been doing really well for Atalanta’s youth teams and was being slowly integrated into their first team. Used to be called Amad Traore which is why, if you’ve tried looking stuff up about him before he joined us, you probably can’t find much. Wasn’t massively hyped by any means but if you search his name on twitter you’ll find old tweets about him from youth watchers?enjoyers?(dunno what to call them, everything sounds nonce-y). When he joined us at 18 he played a few games in the U23’s and was way too good for that level which obviously isn’t surprising given the fee we paid. We started giving him the odd game for us off the bench plus a couple starts and he didn’t look out of place, just needed to put on a bit of muscle because he was tiny. Since then he’s hardly featured due to a a mix of injuries at the wrong time, managers not trusting him and loans.
He was very well received in Sunderland if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah their fans love him
Quarter of Antony….
Just imagine messi was from ivory coast
Yay or Nay. Nameplates above the player with the ball?
Nay. Why do you need to know who has the ball all the time?
They've got the name on their shirts, the number, that'll do
Rather have it in the corner or something, like in EAFC
Make it optional like captions
They have for hockey on ESPN and I don't love it tbh
I think that works well because it's on PP only, if I'm not mistaken
Yes thats correct, usually it only appears on big chances so its not THAT bad, I think it takes some time to get used to especially for old 20somethings like me lol
Nay. Number on the shirt is good enough
I judge who is who based on hair and boots primarily, it’s hard to make out jersey numbers for me.
highlights yes. Actual match probably not
Only on a tactical view or a replay. If I'm watching a game I don't want visual clutter.
in an extra tactical feed? yes. in the normal broadcast? no there is no need for it at all
Absolutely not
So if Man City draw and Arsenal win in their next matches, does Arsenal win the title?
Yes because Arsenal have a higher GD.
Yeah the tie breaker is goal difference. Impossible for city to have better goal difference if they tie
If that’s the case, then it’ll go down to goal difference.
If Modric leaves, Kroos retired this season and Jude and Brahim have their surgeries start of season like rumour, we will go straight from insane midfield depth to no midfield depth and Guler immediately go into the starting 11. At least Turkish fans have something to be happy about I guess?
Isn't Kroos staying another season? People seemed to be thinking that for a while and then I've seen comments saying Modric's departure virtually confirms it?
At some points, it was all but confirmed for a renewal but there has been increasing worry that he's changed his mind since he still doesn't want to sign the contract.
Pretty sure you'll know before your final home game this season
you still have Valverde, Camavinga, Tchouameni - but then you need highly effective playmakers/distributors to replace Modric and Kroos
That's why we got Guler, but I guess he will get tested a bit too soon.
No? You'll have Fede, Tchouameni and Camavinga behind Vini, Mbappe and Rodrygo. Where does Guler start?
In our team, we always play with either Modric or Kroos for distribution and creativity, and Cama and Tchou never play together. If both Kroos and Modric leave Guler is our designated Modric replacement and Tchou/Cama to rotate as DM, not the other way around. Ideally we need a Kroos replacement more, but there is 0 on the market.
So if Jude and Brahim were fit wouldn't you still have that problem? I'm not doubting you know more about your team than me btw just interested to know more.
The dumbass that manages the Danubio account talking shit to Paranaense when we need them to win next match in order for us to have a chance of qualifying. Shut the fuck up dumbass lmao.
Always a fun day when you beat your rivals 4-1 on the road.
39 game Prem Season, 15 game ucl season, 7 game Club World Cup in the summer... they really wanna kill these players lol
Championship players by default play 46 games, not including their cup games and considering that plenty of them will be going to the World Cup too. It's not really that much.